


The Noblest Motives

by anathemagerminabunt



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-09
Updated: 2012-09-09
Packaged: 2017-11-13 22:09:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/508232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anathemagerminabunt/pseuds/anathemagerminabunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.</i>
</p><p>John and Sherlock end up trapped in a disused meat locker. While the two of them are stuck, unfortunately their conversation is not. What follows is some of the most awkward dancing around John has ever had to endure. Written before the second series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Noblest Motives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [incapricious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/incapricious/gifts).



Sherlock is impossible to live with.

He’s messy. He’s loud. He’s horribly lazy. He’s inconsiderate, and that’s putting it lightly. He doesn’t eat for days and then, when he does, he invariably eats the last of John’s favorite biscuits that he was saving for after dinner, damn it. He’s moody, impatient, and a complete ass to everyone he meets.

But he’s brilliant. He’s the most engaging man John has ever met. He’s skilled, he’s talented, he’s meticulous about his work, and he’s intriguing in a way that makes John think of moths and flame.

Sherlock is impossible to live without.

***

It starts with the dreams.

No, that’s a misattribution. It doesn’t _start_ with the dreams-- if anything, the dreams are a byproduct. But it’s easier for John to blame his unconscious self and avoid the problem than it is to face it head on.

He’s got a very nice flat, with a very nice (okay, _interesting_ ) flatmate, and he’ll even have a very nice job, once Sarah starts taking his calls again. Things are finally starting to turn around, a first since Afghanistan.

He’ll be damned if he’ll let some silly infatuation muck things up again.

***

It’s ultimately Sherlock’s fault that they end up in a disused meat locker, John hurling himself against the all too sturdy door while Sherlock wanders the small room, curling a lip in disgust. “No mobile signal.”

“No signal?” John repeats, incredulous. “You’re searching for a-- of course there’s no bloody signal, we’re twenty feet underground!”

“No need to get shirty.” With an irritating air of nonchalance, Sherlock leans against a wall, crossing his feet at the ankles. “You should watch your temper, John. Elevated blood pressure can--”

Slamming his good shoulder into unrelenting steel, John lets out a frustrated groan.

***

“I don’t understand why you’re upset.”

John closes his eyes. “We’ve been locked in by a fiend because you _had_ to know how he murdered his third victim unobserved. If it wasn’t for your damned curiosity leading--”

“Lestrade will find us.” Sherlock looks up to fix John with a calculating gaze. “You’ve never minded crawling through drainage pipes, so it’s not claustrophobia. It’s not that we’re trapped-- six hours on top of that Ferris wheel and you didn’t act like this then.” He cocks his head. “Does this have to do with your attraction to me?”

John chokes.

***

“How-- how did you know? How could you possibly have known that?” he manages, finally finding his voice, his heart hammering in his chest

“Was I not supposed to?” Sherlock returns, his tone bordering on boredom. “Really, John, if you didn’t want me to know, you shouldn’t have been so obvious about it.”

“I-- I didn’t-- I wasn’t--” John takes a deep breath, giving himself a moment to just _think_. “I didn’t think I was. Obvious, I mean.”

“Oh, well.” Sherlock shrugs in an unbearably graceful gesture that socks John right in the gut. “You were.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t say that I mind.”

***

To John’s surprise, it _is_ possible to have a silent mental collapse.

“John? Didn’t you hear me?”

“I’m not gay.” _Oh god, he didn’t say that, did he?_

Sherlock looks taken aback for a moment-- an effect John wouldn’t have thought he was capable of inducing. “I didn’t say you were.”

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck,_ none of this was going the way he had certainly not been imagining. “Not to say I’m not...” John shakes his head, looking away. “Maybe we shouldn’t-- can we not do this right now?”

Deflating, Sherlock simply nods.

***

Silence stretches thin between them, though John easily passes the time with self-loathing. The occasional _click_ of Sherlock’s phone is the only interruption in his purgatory.

“Look,” he eventually begins, “I didn’t say that right. What I meant was--”

“Well, well,” Lestrade announces as the door creaks open. “Still think it’s a good idea to rush headlong into danger without back-up, Sherlock?”

 _Damn it_.

In one effortless move, Sherlock stands, avoiding all eye contact as he glides past Lestrade and into the abandoned warehouse. “You found us, didn’t you?”

John makes a noncommittal noise, listlessly following.

***

For the first time since that fateful case involving the serial killing cabbie, Sherlock leaves the scene without John.

“Have you seen-- no? Right. Of course then.” John breaks away from the crowd milling about, hobbling toward the nearest main road. Under his breath, he mutters, “Stupid, _stupid_.” How could he be--

“Get in line.”

He stops suddenly, spinning around to confront the voice. “Excuse-- oh. Lestrade. Listen, there wouldn’t be a taxi somewhere around--”

“He’s brilliant. A genius,” Lestrade continues, heedless. “But that’s not to say he’s never wrong, is it? He’s still human.”

John pauses. “Exactly.”

***

The flat is dark when John arrives home, more uninviting than he can recall in recent times. Depositing his jacket over the back of a nearby chair, he’s halfway to the stairs before a voice rings out, “So is it shame? The tin soldier can’t afford to be _that way_? Or is it me?”

Sherlock steps out from the shadows, practically shaking with some unidentifiable emotion. “Which is it, John? Because I thought this was something mutual. I thought you--”

“Shut _up!_ ” It explodes out of him before John can stop himself, hanging thickly between them.

***

“You’re selfish,” John continues. “You think of nothing but your next case and you don’t care who you leave behind. You’re egotistical, self-centered, and so _unbelievably_ lazy, I mean, c’mon, your phone was in your pocket and you still ask me--” He shakes his head, reminding himself to focus. “You don’t just enjoy crime, you flourish in it.”

He takes one careful step toward Sherlock, pulling the man against him in a jerking motion. “But I can’t get you out of my head. I think, eat, sleep, _breathe_ you.”

That said, he crushes their lips together.

***

“I knew it!” Mrs. Hudson cries out behind them, though John can’t remember hearing her come up the stairs. There’s a grin breaking out across her face, the likes of which he has never seen. “I knew it, wait ‘til Mrs. Turner hears!” She leaves before either man can process this.

“John,” Sherlock croaks out after a beat. “John, earlier, in the meat locker, you said--”

“I know what I said,” John cautiously replies, “but you of all people should know what an idiot I can be.”

“Oh, I do,” Sherlock reassures, leaning in for a second kiss. “I do.”

***

Sherlock is impossible to live with.

He’s messy. He’s loud. He’s horribly lazy. He’s inconsiderate, and that’s putting it lightly. He doesn’t eat for days and then, when he does, he invariably eats the last of John’s favorite biscuits that he was saving for after dinner, damn it. He’s moody, impatient, and a complete ass to everyone he meets.

But he’s brilliant. He’s the most engaging man John has ever met. He’s skilled, he’s talented, he’s meticulous about his work, and he’s intriguing in a way that makes John think of moths and flame.

Sherlock is impossible to live without.


End file.
